Renfro, James  

Professor Renfro was an excellent instructor for engineering surveying, as he is an industry professional and has a lot of current experience in the field for his career. This particular course had a 1 hour lecture followed by a 3 hour lab for every day of the class. It was excellent to have an instructor (especially at 7am) who is enthusiastic and excited to be in the field. Having the hands on (Learn by Doing, if you will) approach to learn how to use the surveying equipment outside instead of just trying to learn from a book or theory was much more gratifying. The homework load was enough to learn the material, but we were graded more on our practical understanding and ability to demonstrate the concepts in the field than we were on the in class exams. Professor Renfro was a very thorough and knowledgeable instructor.

Professor Renfro was a brand new teacher this quarter. He began the quarter being super cold and even rude sometimes, making him unapproachable to ask questions, deferring students from being able to fully understand the concepts. He presented the material too fast with little examples, sending the class out for a lab with little instruction on how to complete it, which made labs super stressful. Don't get me wrong, he is an extremely intelligent and knowledgeable guy, but when your class is scared of you half the quarter, you've got to know you are doing something wrong. I feel like I would have enjoyed the subject so much more if I had the other surveying teacher, because it actually was super interesting. However, this class turned into one I loathed going to twice and week and couldn't wait to be over with due to the way the teaching was handled. Honestly, a good portion of what I learned I taught myself, which I guess is a good learning tool, but a bit frustrating. Near the end of quarter, Professor Renfro actually started to warm up to the class and actually started to teach at a more normal pace which was nice. This makes me hope that for the next class he will be much better, and if not, my prayers go out to you.

horrible teacher. Very mean, sarcastic, and not friendly. His class is very unorganized. Class was cancelled often. If you fall asleep in class (it's at 7 AM) he will threaten to drop you. He teaches horribly. Lectures very fast and will miss crucial information. He was lost in most of the labs and din't know what he was doing. You won't learn anything but it's very easy to get an A if you do the labs.

Renfro is the worst professor I have ever encountered in my academic experience. He is unprofessional, rude, disorganized and lazy. If you want to learn the material take any other professor but Renfro. Mr. Mastin is a great professor for any BRAE class.

Extremely bad professor!!!!! Try your best to avoid him..... He does not know what he is doing and can't help students during labs.

At the end of this course, I felt I had learned a significant amount about surveying, and I was very happy to have had Renfro as my professor. I would say the class had a rough start, but I took him Fall '14, which was his first quarter teaching at Cal Poly. At first Renfro was harsh, and didn't offer much help. Things turned around once he got adjusted. He is great at explaining topics and very knowledgeable. He doesn't give much homework, and there weren't quizzes. In the field, if you have a question or two he will make sure they're answered before he helps another group.

HE IS A TERRIBLE TEACHER! Arrogant, Rude (probably bipolar) and selfish. He doesn't care about your understanding of the material! He spends a lot of time trying to convince students that he knows the material and that he is better than the students,but he makes a lot of mistakes and he can't teach. Very unorganized person; No syllabus, no power-points, no grade book ... NOTHING!!! You never know what to expect with this guy. Make yourself a favor and take this class with a real professor!

Professor Renfro is very knowledgeable in his field. He is a licensed PE and PLS which is great. He knows what he is talking about. However, he was really hard to approach and very intimadating. I think he has the best intentions for the class but he doesn't seem very organized about it. He rushed through lectures leaving us confused for labs. He also did not even make his own slides but used that of another professors. Professor Renfro also claimed he would use polylearn but never got around to it. It just seems like he rushed us in a lot of ways and was more interested in surfing after class than helping his students. I thought it was an interesting class but not the best professor.

Very unprofessional teacher! Can't believe he is teaching at Cal Poly.

Professor Renfro is one of the worst professors at cal poly, his grading system doesn't make any sense. Since some people did pretty bad on the midterm, Renfro offered 20 points of extra credit (20%) to those who got C- or lower grade. But he didn't offered any extracredit to the students who gor high C's or better. At the end those who got D's on the midterm ended up with better grades than the people who worked hard to get a decent grade. You won't learn much from him, but he doesn't asign much homework and he will give you 10 in all your labs even if they are wrong and sloppy .

You can get a good grade and have a fun time learning how to use the equipment but he wont teach you much. I took him for his first quarter at Poly and he walks into his first class and literally doesn't even have the curriculum yet. Lots of figuring out how to use equipment by yourself which is good for you. Isn't really technical in grading and will give you credit just for doing the field book. He can be a hot-head if you don't handle equipment correctly. HOW TO GET AN A: Get the practice tests from the other class and go through the entire thing a few times. I'd say 70% of questions on midterms and finals were straight from these practice tests. Don't necessarily need the expensive book either.